From Doubts to Declaration 

By Tim Trainor

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/070321.cfm
Ephesians 2:19-22
John 20:24-29

I feel that some Independence Day Comments are called for as this Sunday is the 4th of July plus in our first reading from Ephesians Paul speaks of us as being “fellow citizens.”

The following is an article by Anne Husted Burleigh in this July's Magnificat. Among many of her books is a biography of one of the American founders, John Adams. She writes:

In God’s plan of history (that mysterious drama that unites God’s providential care with our freedom) there are particular moments that reveal with glittering clarity that God is in charge. For Americans,    Independence Day marks the anniversary of such a moment.

Nearly 2 & ½ centuries ago, on July 4, 1776, members of the Continental Congress approved Jefferson’s magnificent Declaration of Independence, proclaiming “these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

For the first time a nation sprang forth, not simply from the bond of people living together in a place for years, but rather from an idea, the principle of the truth of the human person as sacred and unrepeatable. The Declaration acknowledged our origin as beings made by God, with rights God himself gave us. It is God’s law (his plan) that declares unequivocally that in our creation by the divine hand rests our equal liberty and the rights inherent in us as God’s creatures. Our liberty arises not from us, but from the one who made us.

Independence Day honors not our own artificial schemes of liberty and equality but the founding principle of natural law that alone protects who we are: each one of us chosen, loved, and created as free beings by God our Father. No other authority will do: nothing other than divine truth provides proper grounding for ordered liberty. On God’s authority, then, the American founders in 1776, wrote “with a firm reliance on the Protection of divine providence,” we venture forth in the great experiment,  pledging “to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.”

Now, on to my Reflection on John 20:24-29 for this Saturday which is the feast of Saint Thomas, the Apostle, who I believe gets a bit of a bad rap as ‘Doubting Thomas,' a term that I believe needs a bit of refinement.

Did you know to ‘doubt’ in the theological sense requires that one first have truth revealed to them, and that they have accepted that truth, and then they have allowed that faith to wither, to some degree. In a sense, ‘doubt’ is a sin against the virtue of faith. As the Catechism puts it:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. If deliberately cultivated - doubt can lead to spiritual blindness. (#2088)

This definition follows from the nature of supernatural faith, which Thomas Aquinas defined as an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace (CCC, #155).

So, in faith, the human intellect and will cooperate with divine grace which acts first and “Beliving is therefore an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of one's will moved by God thru grace”.

Notice that in this definition God acts first!

The last phrase of that definition is key here: We believe primarily not because it ‘makes sense’ to us, but rather because of the authority of the One Who reveals it, God Himself. We can and should doubt in natural faith, wherein the formal object of our belief is some fallible human authority.

How about doubting God? Cardinal Newman, who thought much of the nature of faith in his own spiritual journey, wrote that: ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt. We should not doubt God! We can question, ponder, analyze, mull over, struggle with any number of the articles of faith, especially the ‘hard’ cases of evil, suffering, salvation, the Eucharist, and so on, but we cannot, or at least should not, doubt God!

Thomas refused to believe his fellow Apostles when they declared that they had seen the living Christ, still with the marks of His brutal torture and death by crucifixion. Thomas wanted empirical proof, to help him overcome his difficulties, that is, to put his hands and fingers in the very wounds.

As we know, Christ does appear to Thomas on the Octave of His Resurrection, and offers to have him place his hands and fingers in the wounds, declaring to the him, Do not be unbelieving, but believing.

To me, Thomas did not so much reject, as at first refuse to accept (believe), the fullness of faith. The appearance of the Risen Christ was the beginning of this perfect faith of the Apostles in the resurrection, which has become the defining hallmark and principle of our Christian faith.

Thomas then responds to Christ’s invitation by making that simple declaration of faith echoed by Christians throughout the ages: My Lord and My God, and there is a pious tradition that we repeat those words as we adore the sacred Host and Blood as they are elevated together by the priest at the end of the consecration portion of Mass.

There is no evidence that Thomas actually touches Christ, and really there was no need for him to do so, for faith is a supernatural gift, bestowed on us by God, and not the fruit of some scientific or empirical verification. Per CCC, #156, such  motives of credibility, as miracles, visions, prophecies, proofs and so on, can lead us to faith, or help bolster our faith, but they cannot be faith itself.

After this encounter, Tradition traces Thomas’ post-Pentecost preaching ministry to Syria, Persia, and southern India. In the 3rd century Saint Jerome testified to the Church’s universality, declaring that Christ dwells everywhere, “with Thomas in India and with Peter in Rome.”

So, what sort of man do you think that our Gospel reading describes? Is it a "Doubting Thomas" or a Thomas who has been helped via Grace to overcome the 'ten thousand difficulties' Cardinal Newman mentioned, and became a man of such mature Faith that he should be remembered as the first person to explicitly acknowledge the divinity of Jesus in John's Gospel with his “My Lord and My God declaration?”

There is that word 'declaration' again ...

Now most of us I think when we think of this story call it the story of doubting Thomas because we identify with Thomas's struggle. His struggle to believe in the amazing truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. But hopefully you are now beginning to see that we could just as easily called this story “the confession of the believing Thomas” because it really climaxes not with Thomas touching Jesus, but with his confession of a great faith. As once he encounters the risen Christ, what does he say? “My Lord and my God.” And this is the first time in John's Gospel, since chapter 1, where anyone ever calls Jesus God. So the two words Thomas uses here, “my Lord [kyrios in Greek] and my God [theos in Greek, we get the word Theology from that],” are both the words that were used to describe God in the Jewish Old Testament. Kyrios was the Greek word for “the Lord” and then theos was the Greek word for God, Elohim.

Remember that these words of Thomas, are those of a Jewish man. The two possessives "my" makes the two affirmations stand out independently.

So this is a full confession of the divinity of Jesus Christ by Thomas and it kind of brings the Gospel to a climactic end — although there is going to be an epilogue in Chapter 21. You get the sense that after Thomas says this, John is ready to wrap up his Gospel and he says that, “there are many other things that Jesus did, but I told you about these so that you might believe that he is (not only), the Christ (that is the Messiah, but also), the Son of God. So, I (the author John) will stop here.”

Thus, Thomas's confession of faith is extremely important because it shows us the importance of the divinity of Jesus, that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth isn’t just a vindication of the fact that he really was the Messiah, but that the resurrection of Jesus is a vindication of his claims to be divine, of his claims to be God, and Thomas recognizes that.

When he encounters the risen Christ, he realizes he isn’t just the Messiah, but that He is “my Lord and my God” come in the flesh, crucified, died and risen again. And this verifies the truth of everything else that Jesus has said and everything else that Jesus has done throughout His entire public ministry. And it really is the heart of the Christian claim that Jesus is the divine son of God, risen in his body forever.

Although you might say “well, it would be nice to have been there”… many people will say that “if I had been there it would be easier for me to believe. If I could have seen Jesus, if I could have touched Jesus, if I could have seen him perform miracles, it would be easier for me and I wouldn’t have these struggles with my doubts.” But notice that last word of Jesus. He gives a kind of beatitude, a blessing for all those of us who, unlike Thomas, didn't get to see him. He says “have you believed because you have seen me?  Well blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.” So in a sense I would just say that Jesus imparts a special blessing for all those of us who weren't born at the time he was walking the earth. And He gives us a special grace to be able to come to the same faith that Thomas had through seeing and then believing.

I think that – so to speak – He gifts each of us with the special grace to Believe first and thus to then See Him as Thomas did – as “my Lord and my God”!

This is a powerful and clear confession by Thomas. Moreover, our Lord accepted the declaration of his deity as the true expression of faith. Here we see Jesus not only answering Thomas' doubt, but every Thomas in the future. All eleven disciples were now "witnesses" of his resurrection. Their testimony would stand unassailable in all future ages.

Fifty years after the resurrection of Jesus the apostle John wrote: "This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life – and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us) ... so that you may have fellowship with us … with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ)" (1 John 1:1-3).

Thomas, I believe, after overcoming some difficulties, went all-in when he declared, "My Lord and my God!" and he meant every word of it. Look where it took him, all the way to India!

In summary, our Gospel invites us to ponder how we ourselves are able to believe in Jesus, with full assurance and conviction, even though we have not directly seen him or touched him. The Catholic Church teaches that we can do so because we know that the testimony of all the Apostles (to include Thomas) which we have received is trustworthy that is, without doubt.

In verse 29 Jesus said to Thomas, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed". Notice that verse includes you and me! Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God. Thomas saw Him physically and worshipped Him. Jesus says to you and me - "Blessed is he who has not seen me with physical eyes, but indeed has seen me (with spiritual eyes) and believed."

It was by the Holy Spirit that St. Thomas was able to pass from seeing the man Jesus to believing and confessing Him as his Lord and his God. And by that same Spirit we also make the same steps towards faith, but,  in the reverse order – by first coming to believe (via the special grace Christ gives to we present day Christians) and then seeing Him at work in our lives.

Again, that's a special blessing that has been reserved for you and I! So let's enjoy it!